By: E&P Staff "There's a sense of urgency about mobile media," said Mediaweek's Mike Shields, in introducing his panel on portable media at the Interactive Media Conference and Trade Show in Las Vegas last week. "Major publishers already in the game. If publishers aren't thinking about it now, they should be." Shields noted that publishers are increasingly trying to figure out new ways to provide appropriate content for small screen devices like cell phones.
Joining Shields on the stage were Joe Fiveash, Senior Vice President and General Manager, The Weather Channel Interactive; NPR Digital Media's vice president and general manager Maria Thomas, Olivier Griot, director of mobile services at pulisher Hachette Filipachi; and Albert Chang, executive vice president of digital media for the Disney ABC Television Group. The panel touched on a range of subjects, including the sudden popularity of podcasts, questions about whether media companies should partner with telephone companies, and how publishers should optimize their ability to stream increasingly sophisticated content onto smaller screens. One thing they all agreed on was that we are very early in the mobile media game.
Noting that NPR currently produces 40 podcasts, Thomas said that podcasting technology was also very early in its development. "It's a very nascent marketplace. So far, the types of people downloading podcasts are early adopters, and they are listening to all different kinds of content."
Chang made the point that mobile was only different in its platform, and, in the end, people simply want to be able to access and keep their content. He said ABC.com is currently experimenting with different, flexible business models in trying to adapt the network's traditional content to the web and to smaller screens. But he said consumers should expect to pay for the content either through subscriptions or by watching advertisements.
"Consumers are demanding that it be free and if it's going to be free it's got to be ad-supported," said Chang. "That all there is to it."
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